SHORT STORY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15520, 30 January 1914, Page 4

SHORT STORY.

ON THE VERANDAH. BY RALPH COBINO. (Copyright.) There was a medley of sound on the hotel verandah—hum of voices in assorted Jceys, tinkle of teacups, laughter, the occasional yap of somebody's pet dog. The laughter that was present was threaded through the whole, giving a keynote of gaiety. The sun thrust whimsical figures through green trellis work and met and matched this note of laughter; it showed merriment in the dancing beams it sent in and out the tea tables. The atmosphere was delicately frivolous.

Two men at one of the tables sat looking about them with interst. They were fresh from a quiet country town, and the crowd had an element of fascination for them. They laughed with it, at it; their interest played about it, sympathetic and yet aloof.

"I wonder if they're as happy as they sound," Hammond suggested, '* or is it a mere surface ripple He shifted a little abruptly in his chair, turning his head to watch a new arrival. " That's a very beautiful woman, exquisitely gowned." ,

Deckster followed the direction of his companion's eyes, saw, and recognised the new arrival.

" That's Miss Lenton," he said. As he spoke the lady caught his eye, bowed, and passed on to a table at the far end of the verandah.

"You know her Hammond questioned.

" I knew her—several years ago." " An acquaintance I should have been slow to drop," Hammond suggested "Her beauty" —or was—her obsession." Deckster frowned at his teacup. "In a sense I may say that the story of that obsession has brought me here to-day." "I thought you were merely tho country cousin seeing sights," Hammond laughed. " Even country cousins may have some part in the lives of city friends." " Look at her now," Hammond interposed. Miss Lenton was sitting alone at one of the tea-tables. Her profile, shown to the crowd, was classical, cold in its per- ! fection. Her gown was a subtle link with her beauty, expressed grace in the ! same language though in different words. Her movements had a meticulous charm; when she lifted her hand to her face yon had a sense of carefully rehearsed effect. And in sharp contrast to this, giving the lie to it, she left an impression of serene unconsciousness.

" Cold," Hammond summed her op. " A perfectly appointed "room lacking the comfort of a fire. Nothing to warm oneself by when the wind blows." Deckster nodded. "You've . hit it Although once I thought her a woman capable of passion." " Private history ? " " Not at all. I'll tell you the story if you care to hear it." " Rather/' Hammond assented. He glanced again at Miss Lenton. And from time to time as Deckster's voice ran on his eyes went to her, scrutinisingly. " Her people and mine lived near each other down South when we were young. In a small town you're always running up against your neighbours. You get each other's lives in limelight. Rose Lenton was the acknowledged beauty of the place. And she developed, as she grew up, a delicate sense of exterior beauty as a setting for her own. She dressed perfectly. She overhauled old Lenton's house till it became an aesthetic background for that red-gold hair of hers. She* had the trick of colour-blending. It was said in the town that the garden bloomed in colours that showed of! Rose Lenton's charms. She had, too, the trick of matching mood with movement," " She has that now," Hammond asserted.

Deckster's eyes followed Hammond's. Miss Lenton had shifted slightly in her seat. One hand hung limp at her side, the other toyed idly with the cake on her plate. Weariness spoke eloquently from her pose, a weariness that* veiled unrest.

"It used to be a joke in the neighbourhood that her husband, when he appeared, would have to fit in with her scheme of beauty. When Dick Metcalf came on the scene we all thought him a providential gift. What she is as a woman he was as a man. In looks I meannot temperament; he was of finer stuff than she. He succumbed to her fascination early. Jove! How he admired her! She moved in the midst of homage, saw it in his eyes, heard it in his voice; his actions shouted it."

"They became engaged, I suppose— the usual story ? " "In so many months or weeksit was a foregone conclusion. Remember that she saw in him the thing that she had made her —beauty. She was in love with the immaculate moulding of his features, the breadth of his shoulders, his height, the musical, timbre of his voice. To her he was the epitome of many emotions. They were engaged, shortly to be married." Hammond's interest leapt into activity as he watched Miss Lenton. "Is all this old history, then? She looks—say, twenty-eight." His voice paused on this suggestion of age; the pause, the slight shrug that went with it, gave Rose Lenton several added years. " Old history—yes. At least, if eight years makes old history. To Metcalf it must have seemed an immeasurable cycle of time"

Deckster bit his sentence in two. His eyes followed Hammond's. Miss Lenton had half risen from her seat; her face, turned towards the two men, looked suddenly distorted. She was looking beyond them at something, or someone. Neither Hammond nor Deckster looked behind them to follow the direction of her eyes. Miss Lenton's face held their interest; what she saw seemed of little import compared to the change the seeing wrought in her. It was as if something wiped beauty from her momentarily. For an instant of time her face was stripped of everything save some naked quivering emotion. As abruptly as the change had come it left her. She sat down again, her figure fell into its former lines of weariness. She treated with absolute indifference the glances of curiosity thrown at her from the other tea-tables. She was hedged about by an intense reserve.

Hammond moved his hand as if to push aside this interevning moment. "Yes?" he questioned. " You were saying—" Deckster sat silent for a minute. With one he beat softly on the marble table before him. That last glimpse of Miss Lenton's face filled his thought. Presently he took up his story. " I have said that Metcalf was of finer stuff than she. His was the metal out of which heroes are made. There came a day when the hero in him found expression." Deckster ceased to beat with his hand on the table. He sat tense and still; retrospect held him.

"Yes?" Hammond urged. The tone of Deckster's voice altered. It became like an instrument out of tune —harsh and grating,

" One night the Lentons' house took fire. I was there among the watchers, and I can see it now in memory, a leap ing mass of flame. The barking of a dog roused the family, and they were able to make their escape in timeall save Rose. Her room was in an old wing of the house—high, difficult of access from the outside. Inside Same shut it off in a fearful isolation. The house was a vivid mass of fire against the black of the sky; and Rose's face came, set in the frame of her window, white and terror-stricken. Metcalf was down below. He called out to her, sent his voice ringing to combat her despair. Then he began— knows how he compassed it— to go to her relief. Here a foothold, there a place, hot and stinging, where his hands rested; flames trying to trick

him, darting at him, taunting him. '* In some _ way he got to her. He wrapped her in his coat, covered ' her face— thought of thatmade a kind of Cradle of the bed-clothes, and. lowered her unhurt, and, as you seeunblemished." Instinctively they looked at her. And, without reason, Hammond felt that he hated _ this woman's beauty. Foolishly, yet with insistence, lie felt it an affront. " And the ,man> himself ? " Hammond asked.

"His descent was not so successful as his ascent. Flame had eaten into the wall. Half way down he slipped ajid fell— Oh, yes, he lived," Deckster responded to Hammond's unspoken question. " Death was not kind enough to take him."

" A cripple ? " Hammond ventured. " That—yes. And his face— Deckster began to beat his hand onj the table againhis way of showing emotion. "It had become a thing one would rather not look at. Rose Lenton—well, I believe she made a fight of it for a little time, tried to beat down her ruling passion." " Which was—"

"As I told, you— love of beauty. I used to see them Out together after Metcalf got better. He shufflled. along beside her, one leg dragging, one arm limp at his side. And his face— at least, the eyes were unchanged; they blazed like lights from a ruined house. She rarely looked at him. She gazed straight before her, and I've seen a look, in her eyes that spelt panic. He saw it, too. He offered her her freedom. The cursed thing is that she took it." Two travelling musicians had come on to the hotel verandah; ono with a violin, the other with a harp. They sent now a plaintive turie in amongst the laughing talk at . the tea-tables. And the wailing little song wandered to and fro, an alien in a place of mirth. Miss Lenton bent forward in her seat, giving ear to this new sound. Her whole attitude spoke sympathy, a sense of comradeship with minor notes. She threw the men a silver coin when silence fell, and urged with a gesture a repetition of the song. Hammond and Deckster listened in ail-' ence to the music. Deckster's face had darkened, showing his sense of the tragedy of Metcalf's story. There was a little showing of contempt on Hammond's faje as he watched Miss Lenton. She waa a. woman with an inordinate love for tinsel, and mere surface things. Sensing presently the mood of the company the musicians broke into a rae-time tune, and this new sound broke Deckster's silence.

"I know Metcalf," lie said. "I have tha honour of his friendship. In these last years I've seen him playing the man though fate had made him look the clown. A strong man— sums him up. It takes strength to face unflinch in civ the shrinking avoidance of acquaint ances. still worse, the startled cries of children."

Hammond asked an abrupt question. "You said that in a sense the story of Miss Lenton's compelling love of beauty had brought you here to-day. What did you mean ? " " Metcalf's here in town on business. I thought it possible he might chance upon Miss Lenton. A meeting could bring him only pain. I conceived tie idea of acting watch-dog for my friend." " When she looked behind us that time—-what did she see " Hammond ventured

Deckster followed the other's thought, shared it. " Possibly it was Metcalf. But 1 did not know he was here, in this hotel."

Miss Lenton had risen with a quick impulsive gesture from her table. She turned her head over her shoulder, and across the length of the verandah met the challenge of Deckster's eyes. She hesitated, seemed to poise uncertainly between desire and some nervousness. Decision claimed her presently, and she moved quickly towards Deckster's table. He rose to met her, and she saw the contempt of his eyes through thinly feiled courtesy.

" May I speak to you ?" she said. She moved her head towards the garden. "We can be quiet there." Deckster followed her in silence. Hammond watched them, noting the graceful lines -of her figure, the air, almost of eagerness, with' which she led the way. She seemed moved by ' some compelling need. There was a suggestion of entreaty in her voice when she 'spoke. " 1 know how you despise me," slipped from her as she moved by Deckster's side.

He received it in silence, and she went on a little breathlessly. 1 "I know, because it is only a faint measure of my own feeling, my own scorning of myself." Deckster looked at her with some amazement, and at sight of his expression she smiled twistedly. " You are amazed to find that I can see myself without the footlights " " Yes," he said, frankly.^ They had come to a screened part of the garden, and she turned, facing him. She held her hands out, entreating him. "You are his friend. Be my messenger. Try and find words to tell him that I have learnt my lesson." She turned her face more directly towards him tilted it to meet the sunlight as if she would expose her beauty to his scorn.* She lifted her left hand and touched her cheek. She seemed to show herself as a thing she despised, that he tod must despise. "A frame with some claim to beauty," she said). "And empty. The picture is not even lost. It never existed." She still moved her hand about her face. The pressure of it left a red mark as if she branded herself. "You saw Metcalf this afternoon? He passed the verandah when we were at tea ? "

"Yes," she said. Tremulously she added, "I saw him— a god for "beauty. It seemed so to me, after eight hungry years." Her voice swung into a passionate key. "I am surfeited with beauty, and still hungry. I hunger for the sight of his marred face. The years have taught me—" She broke off, losing control of her voice. Deckster looked at her. Sympathy with Metcalf had hardened him; yet the sight of Rose Lenton's grief touched him- This frame that had shown itself an empty useless thing— Metcalf still desire it ?

"I will tell him," he said curtly. Ho could not resist the stab of another sentence. "I can't answer for his manner of listening— "No," she said quietly. "I realise that."

Her eyes dilated as she looked past and beyond him. Deckster, turning, saw the man they spoke of limping towards them. He came slowly, impeded by his twisted limbs. The sun shone on his face, a remorseless critic. Only his eyra gave the history of his soul; stars in a dark heaven. They seemed oblivious of Deckster's presence. Rose Lenton's voice fell into a throbbing repetition. " Forgive me— forgive me. I have gone hungry for a sight of your facehungry."

The sound of Metcalf's voice in a key of exultant gladness went with Deckster as he turned and left them. It was music plucked from a tragedy joy born from despair. " They are together." Deckster said to Hammond on the verandah. "He loves her still. There was nobility in Metcalf's saving of her life. But jove! there's even a lighter touch of it in his forgiveness." " This time he saves her soul," Himmond suggested. Outside in the garden Rose Lenton's eyes still pleaded for forgiveness. And Metcalf met her with his exultant joy, his gladness that she had learnt to forget the frame and its marring for love of the thing within it.